In one of the greatest bargains in history, US secretary of state William Seward purchases Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, or about 2 cents per acre. The American press, unaware of Alaska's vast oil reserves, derides the purchase as "Seward's Folly."

Mexican emperor Maximillian, executed by a firing squad on the orders of Mexican president Benito Juárez following his failed escape from the Siege of Querétaro, despite the pleas of much of Europe's nobility and intelligencia to spare his life.